Hi Cornelio, Your request is most reasonable, given the amount of money that has been thrown at, and the potentials attributed to ICT's. A recent study of telecenteres in Latin America has shown that even these are unsustainable, and non-competitive with the for-profit cyber cafe's in the same communities.
If there are problems in the social and economic infrastructure that mitigates against success, a technological fix is a paliative. Hernando DeSoto, the Peruvian economist has pointed out that much of the problems for the microenterprise are the structural problems within the developing world in general and Peru and Latin America in particular. These are in the civil/legal infrastructure. Examples abound through Mexico, Central and South America of the cultural and social divide which can not be solved by technology. I remember an advertisement in a paper in the United States for a company that trained operators for bull dozers, heavy road building equipment and construction equipment. It said, essentially, "do not envy the banker, you can earn enough money through training on this equipment, to buy the house next to the banker." Of course the US now advertises that one only has to learn computers to accomplish the same thing. In many ways, ICT's are solutions, looking for a problem. It is interesting that college students in the United States now spend, on the average, more time playing on-line games and using their game consols than doing homework for courses. Is it a wonder that others, globally, choose cyber cafe's or in the past chose entertainment over courses when TV's were first being pushed as the education tool for the future? ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>
